The Smith and The Demon

The Smith And The Demon

THE SMITH AND THE DEMON.[69]

Once upon a time there was a Smith, and he had one son, a

sharp, smart, six-year-old boy. One day the old man went to

church, and as he stood before a picture of the Last Judgment

he saw a Demon painted there--such a terrible one!--black, with

horns and a tail.

"O my!" says he to himself. "Suppose I get just such

another painted for the smithy." So he hired an artist, and

ordered him to paint on the door of the smithy exactly such

another demon as he had seen in the church. The artist painted

it. Thenceforward the old man, every time he entered the

smithy, always looked at the Demon and said, "Good morning,

fellow-countryman!" And then he would lay the fire in the

furnace and begin his work.

Well, the Smith lived in good accord with the Demon for

some ten years. Then he fell ill and died. His son succeeded

to his place as head of the household, and took the smithy into

his own hands. But he was not disposed to show attention to

the Demon as the old man had done. When he went into the

smithy in the morning, he never said "Good morrow" to him;

instead of offering him a kindly word, he took the biggest hammer

he had handy, and thumped the Demon with it three times

right on the forehead, and then he would go to his work. And

when one of God's holy days came round, he would go to church

and offer each saint a taper; but he would go up to the Demon

and spit in his face. Thus three years went by, he all the

while favoring the Evil One every morning either with a spitting

or with a hammering. The Demon endured it and endured it,

and at last found it past all endurance. It was too much for

him.

"I've had quite enough of this insolence from him!" thinks

he. "Suppose I make use of a little diplomacy, and play him

some sort of a trick!"

So the Demon took the form of a youth, and went to the

smithy.

"Good day, uncle!" says he.

"Good day!"

"What should you say, uncle, to taking me as an apprentice?

At all events, I could carry fuel for you, and blow the

bellows."

The Smith liked the idea. "Why shouldn't I?" he replied.

"Two are better than one."

The Demon began to learn his trade; at the end of a month

he knew more about smith's work than his master did himself,

was able to do everything that his master couldn't do. It was

a real pleasure to look at him! There's no describing how

satisfied his master was with him, how fond he got of him.

Sometimes the master didn't go into the smithy at all himself,

but trusted entirely to his journeyman, who had complete charge

of everything.

Well, it happened one day that the master was not at home,

and the journeyman was left all by himself in the smithy.

Presently he saw an old lady[70] driving along the street in her

carriage, whereupon he popped his head out of doors and began

shouting:--

"Heigh, sirs! Be so good as to step in here! We've

opened a new business here; we turn old folks into young

ones."

Out of her carriage jumped the lady in a trice, and ran into

the smithy.

"What's that you're bragging about? Do you mean to say

it's true? Can you really do it?" she asked the youth.

"We haven't got to learn our business!" answered the

Demon. "If I hadn't been able to do it, I wouldn't have invited

people to try."

"And how much does it cost?" asked the lady.

"Five hundred roubles altogether."

"Well, then, there's your money; make a young woman of

me."

The Demon took the money; then he sent the lady's coachman

into the village.

"Go," says he, "and bring me here two buckets full of

milk."

After that he took a pair of tongs, caught hold of the lady

by the feet, flung her into the furnace, and burnt her up; nothing

was left of her but her bare bones.

When the buckets of milk were brought, he emptied them

into a large tub, then he collected all the bones and flung them

into the milk. Just fancy! at the end of about three minutes

the lady emerged from the milk--alive, and young, and beautiful!

Well, she got into her carriage and drove home. There she

went straight to her husband, and he stared hard at her, but

didn't know she was his wife.

"What are you staring at?" says the lady. "I'm young and

elegant, you see, and I don't want to have an old husband! Be

off at once to the smithy, and get them to make you young; if

you don't, I won't so much as acknowledge you!"

There was no help for it; off set the seigneur. But by that

time the Smith had returned home, and had gone into the

smithy. He looked about; the journeyman wasn't to be seen.

He searched and searched, he enquired and enquired, never a

thing came of it; not even a trace of the youth could be found.

He took to his work by himself, and was hammering away,

when at that moment up drove the seigneur, and walked straight

into the smithy.

"Make a young man of me," says he.

"Are you in your right mind, Barin? How can one make a

young man of you?"

"Come, now! you know all about that."

"I know nothing of the kind."

"You lie, you scoundrel! Since you made my old woman

young, make me young too; otherwise, there will be no living

with her for me."

"Why I haven't so much as seen your good lady."

"Your journeyman saw her, and that's just the same thing.

If he knew how to do the job, surely you, an old hand, must

have learnt how to do it long ago. Come, now, set to work at

once. If you don't, it will be the worse for you. I'll have you

rubbed down with a birch-tree towel."

The Smith was compelled to try his hand at transforming

the seigneur. He held a private conversation with the coachman

as to how his journeyman had set to work with the lady,

and what he had done to her, and then he thought:--

"So be it! I'll do the same. If I fall on my feet, good; if

I don't, well, I must suffer all the same!"

So he set to work at once, stripped the seigneur naked, laid

hold of him by the legs with the tongs, popped him into the

furnace, and began blowing the bellows. After he had burnt

him to a cinder, he collected his remains, flung them into the

milk, and then waited to see how soon a youthful seigneur

would jump out of it. He waited one hour, two hours. But

nothing came of it. He made a search in the tub. There was

nothing in it but bones, and those charred ones.

Just then the lady sent messengers to the smithy, to ask

whether the seigneur would soon be ready. The poor Smith

had to reply that the seigneur was no more.

When the lady heard that the Smith had only turned her

husband into a cinder, instead of making him young, she was

tremendously angry, and she called together her trusty servants,

and ordered them to drag him to the gallows. No sooner said

than done. Her servants ran to the Smith's house, laid hold of

him, tied his hands together, and dragged him off to the gallows.

All of a sudden there came up with them the youngster

who used to live with the Smith as his journeyman, who asked

him:--

"Where are they taking you, master?"

"They're going to hang me," replied the Smith, and straightway

related all that had happened to him.

"Well, uncle!" said the Demon, "swear that you will never

strike me with your hammer, but that you will pay me the same

respect your father always paid, and the seigneur shall be alive,

and young, too, in a trice."

The Smith began promising and swearing that he would

never again lift his hammer against the Demon, but would

always pay him every attention. Thereupon the journeyman

hastened to the smithy, and shortly afterwards came back again,

bringing the seigneur with him, and crying to the servants:

"Hold! hold! Don't hang him! Here's your master!"

Then they immediately untied the cords, and let the Smith

go free.

From that time forward the Smith gave up spitting at the

Demon and striking him with his hammer. The journeyman

disappeared, and was never seen again. But the seigneur and

his lady entered upon a prosperous course of life, and if they

haven't died, they're living still.[71]

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Dasent's "Popular Tales from the Norse," p. xl.

[12] Max Müller, "Chips," vol. ii. p. 226.

[13] Take as an illustration of these remarks the close of the story

of "Helena the Fair" (No. 34, Chap. IV.). See how light and bright it

is (or at least was, before it was translated).

[14] I speak only of what I have seen. In some districts of Russia, if

one may judge from pictures, the peasants occupy ornamented and

ornamental dwellings.

[15] Khudyakof, vol. ii. p. 65.

[16] Khudyakof, vol. ii. p. 115.

[17] For a description of such social gatherings see the "Songs of the

Russian People," pp. 32-38.

[18] Afanasief, vi. No. 66.

[19] Cakes of unleavened flour flavored with garlic.

[20] The Nechistol, or unclean. (Chisty = clean, pure, &c.)

[21] Literally, "on thee no face is to be seen."

[22] I do not propose to comment at any length upon the stories quoted

in the present chapter. Some of them will be referred to farther on.

Marusia's demon lover will be recognized as akin to Arabian Ghouls, or

the Rákshasas of Indian mythology. (See the story of Sidi Norman in

the "Thousand and One Nights," also Lane's translation, vol. i., p.

32; and the story of Asokadatta and Vijayadatta in the fifth book of

the "Kathásaritságara," Brockhaus's translation, 1843, vol. ii. pp.

142-159.) For transformations of a maiden into a flower or tree, see

Grimm, No. 76, "Die Nelke," and the notes to that story in vol. iii.,

p. 125--Hahn, No. 21, "Das Lorbeerkind," etc. "The Water of Life,"

will meet with due consideration in the fourth chapter. The Holy Water

which destroys the Fiend is merely a Christian form of the "Water of

Death," viewed in its negative aspect.

[23] Chudinsky, No. 3.

[24] Afanasief, vi. p. 325. Wolfs "Niederlandische Sagen," No. 326,

quoted in Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," i. 292. Note 4.

[25] A number of ghost stories, and some remarks about the ideas of

the Russian peasants with respect to the dead, will be found in Chap.

V. Scott mentions a story in "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,"

vol. ii. p. 223, of a widower who believed he was haunted by his dead

wife. On one occasion the ghost, to prove her identity, gave suck to

her surviving infant.

[26] Afanasief, viii. p. 165.

[27] In West-European stories the devil frequently carries off a

witch's soul after death. Here the fiend enters the corpse, or rather

its skin, probably intending to reappear as a vampire. Compare Bleek's

"Reynard the Fox in South Africa," No. 24, in which a lion squeezes

itself into the skin of a girl it has killed. I have generally

rendered by "demon," instead of "devil," the word chort when it

occurs in stories of this class, as the spirits to which they refer

are manifestly akin to those of oriental demonology.

[28] For an account of which, see the "Songs of the Russian People,"

pp. 333-334. The best Russian work on the subject is Barsof's

"Prichitaniya Syevernago Kraya," Moscow, 1872.

[29] Afanasief, iv. No. 9.

[30] Professor de Gubernatis justly remarks that this "howling" is

more in keeping with the nature of the eastern jackal than with that

of its western counterpart, the fox. "Zoological Mythology," ii. 130.

[31] Afanasief, vii. No. 45.

[32] Pope is the ordinary but disrespectful term for a priest

(Svyashchennik), as popovich is for a priest's son.

[33] "Father dear," or "reverend father."

[34] A phrase often used by the peasants, when frightened by anything

of supernatural appearance.

[35] Afanasief, Skazki, vii. No. 49.

[36] The Russian expression is gol kak sokòl, "bare as a hawk."

[37] In another story St. Nicolas's picture is the surety.

[38] Another variant of this story, under the title of "Norka," will

be quoted in full in the next chapter.

[39] Afanasief, vii. p. 107.

[40] Afanasief, vii. p. 146.

[41] Or "The Seven-year-old." Khudyakof, No. 6. See Grimm, No. 94,

"Die kluge Bauerntochter," and iii. 170-2.

[42] Voevoda, now a general, formerly meant a civil governor, etc.

[43] Afanasief. "Legendui," No. 29.

[44] Diminutive of Peter.

[45] The word employed here is not chort, but diavol.

[46] Some remarks on the stories of this class, will be found in Chap.

VI. The Russian peasants still believe that all people who drink

themselves to death are used as carriers of wood and water in the

infernal regions.

[47] In the sixty-fourth story of Asbjörnsen's "Norske Folke-Eventyr,"

(Ny Samling, 1871) the dispute between the husband and wife is about a

cornfield--as to whether it should be reaped or shorn--and she tumbles

into a pool while she is making clipping gestures "under her husband's

nose." In the old fabliau of "Le Pré Tondu" (Le Grand d'Aussy,

Fabliaux, 1829, iii. 185), the husband cuts out the tongue of his

wife, to prevent her from repeating that his meadow has been clipped,

whereupon she makes a clipping sign with her fingers. In Poggio's

"Facetiæ," the wife is doubly aggravating. For copious information

with respect to the use made of this story by the romance-writers, see

Liebrecht's translations of Basile's "Pentamerone," ii. 264, and of

Dunlop's "History of Literature," p. 516.

[48] Afanasief, v. p. 16.

[49] Ibid., iii. p. 87.

[50] Chudinsky, No. 8. The proverb is dear to the Tartars also.

[51] Ibid. No. 23. The liulka, or Russian cradle, is suspended and

swung, instead of being placed on the floor and rocked. Russian babies

are usually swaddled tightly, like American papooses.

[52] "Panchatantra," 1859, vol. i. § 212, pp. 519-524. I gladly avail

myself of this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my obligations

to Dr. Benfey's invaluable work.

[53] Afanasief, i. No. 9. Written down in the Novgorod Government. Its

dialect renders it somewhat difficult to read.

[54] This story is known to the Finns, but with them the Russian

Demon, (chortenok = a little chort or devil), has become the

Plague. In the original Indian story the demon is one which had

formerly lived in a Brahman's house, but had been frightened away by

his cantankerous wife. In the Servian version (Karajich, No. 37), the

opening consists of the "Scissors-story," to which allusion has

already been made. The vixen falls into a hole which she does not see,

so bent is she on controverting her husband.

[55] Afanasief, ii. No. 12. Written down by a "Crown Serf," in the

government of Perm.

[56] Afanasief, viii. No. 20. A copeck is worth about a third of a

penny.

[57] The story is continued very little further by Afanasief, its

conclusion being the same as that of "The Wise Wife," in Book vii. No.

22, a tale of magic. For a Servian version of the tale see Vuk

Karajich, No. 7.

[58] Afanasief, v. No. 3. From the Novgorod Government.

[59] Literally, "has bid to live long," a conventional euphemism for

"has died." "Remember what his name was," is sometimes added.

[60] It will be observed that the miser holds out against the pain

which the scalded demon was unable to bear. See above, p. 21.

[61] Professor de Gubernatis remarks that he may sometimes be called

"the first Brutus of popular tradition." "Zoological Mythology," vol.

i. p. 199.

[62] Afanasief, v. No. 53.

[63] Zavtrakami podchivat = to dupe; zavtra = to-morrow; zavtrak

= breakfast.

[64] One of the inferior members of the Russian clerical body, though

not of the clergy. But in one of the variants of the story it is a

"pope" or priest, who appears, and he immediately claims a share in

the spoil. Whereupon the Simpleton makes use of his hatchet. Priests

are often nicknamed goats by the Russian peasantry, perhaps on account

of their long beards.

[65] Afanasief, ii. No. 8, v. No. 5. See also Khudyakof, No. 76. Cf.

Grimm, No. 34, "Die kluge Else." Haltrich, No. 66. Asbjörnsen and Moe,

No. 10. (Dasent No. 24, "Not a Pin to choose between them.")

[66] Afanasief, ii. No. 5. Written down by a crown-peasant in the

government of Perm.

[67] Mizgir, a venomous spider, like the Tarantula, found in the

Kirghiz Steppes.

[68] In another story bearing the same title (v. 39) the spider lies

on its back awaiting its prey. Up comes "the honorable widow," the

wasp, and falls straight into the trap. The spider beheads her. Then

the gnats and flies assemble, perform a funeral service over her

remains, and carry them off on their shoulders to the village of

Komarovo (komar = gnat). For specimens of the Russian "Beast-Epos"

the reader is referred (as I have stated in the preface) to Professor

de Gubernatis's "Zoological Mythology."

[69] Afanasief, "Legendui," No. 31. Taken from Dahl's collection. Some

remarks on the Russian "legends" are given in Chap. VI.

[70] Baruinya, the wife of a barin or seigneur.

[71] The chort of this legend is evidently akin to the devil

himself, whom traditions frequently connect with blacksmiths; but his

prototype, in the original form of this story, was doubtless a demigod

or demon. His part is played by St. Nicholas in the legend of "The

Priest with the Greedy Eyes," for which, and for further comment on

the story, see Chap. VI.

CHAPTER II.

MYTHOLOGICAL.

Principal Incarnations of Evil.

The present chapter is devoted to specimens of those skazkas which

most Russian critics assert to be distinctly mythical. The stories of

this class are so numerous, that the task of selection has been by no

means easy. But I have done my best to choose such examples as are

most characteristic of that species of the "mythical" folk-tale which

prevails in Russia, and to avoid, as far as possible, the repetition

of narratives which have already been made familiar to the English

reader by translations of German and Scandinavian stories.

There is a more marked individuality in the Russian tales of this

kind, as compared with those of Western Europe, than is to be traced

in the stories (especially those of a humorous cast) which relate to

the events that chequer an ordinary existence. The actors in the

comediettas of European peasant-life vary but little, either in

title or in character, wherever the scene may be laid; just as in the

European beast-epos the Fox, the Wolf, and the Bear play parts which

change but slightly with the regions they inhabit. But the

supernatural beings which people the fairy-land peculiar to each race,

though closely resembling each other in many respects, differ

conspicuously in others. They may, it is true, be nothing more than

various developments of the same original type; they may be traceable

to germs common to the prehistoric ancestors of the now widely

separated Aryan peoples; their peculiarities may simply be due to the

accidents to which travellers from distant lands are liable. But at

all events each family now has features of its own, typical

characteristics by which it may be readily distinguished from its

neighbors. My chief aim at present is to give an idea of those

characteristics which lend individuality to the "mythical beings" in

the Skazkas; in order to effect this, I shall attempt a delineation of

those supernatural figures, to some extent peculiar to Slavonic

fairy-land, which make their appearance in the Russian folk-tales. I

have given a brief sketch of them elsewhere.[72] I now propose to deal

with them more fully, quoting at length, instead of merely mentioning,

some of the evidence on which the proof of their existence depends.

For the sake of convenience, we may select from the great mass of the

mythical skazkas those which are supposed most manifestly to typify

the conflict of opposing elements--whether of Good and Evil, or of

Light and Darkness, or of Heat and Cold, or of any other pair of

antagonistic forces or phenomena. The typical hero of this class of

stories, who represents the cause of right, and who is resolved by

mythologists into so many different essences, presents almost

identically the same appearance in most of the countries wherein he

has become naturalized. He is endowed with supernatural powers, but he

remains a man, for all that. Whether as prince or peasant, he alters

but very little in his wanderings among the Aryan races of Europe.

And a somewhat similar statement may be made about his feminine

counterpart--for all the types of Fairy-land life are of an

epicene nature, admitting of a feminine as well as a masculine

development--the heroine who in the Skazkas, as well as in other

folk-tales, braves the wrath of female demons in quest of means

whereby to lighten the darkness of her home, or rescues her bewitched

brothers from the thraldom of an enchantress, or liberates her captive

husband from a dungeon's gloom.

But their antagonists--the dark or evil beings whom the hero attacks

and eventually destroys, or whom the heroine overcomes by her virtues,

her subtlety, or her skill--vary to a considerable extent with the

region they occupy, or rather with the people in whose memories they

dwell. The Giants by killing whom our own Jack gained his renown, the

Norse Trolls, the Ogres of southern romance, the Drakos and Lamia of

modern Greece, the Lithuanian Laume--these and all the other groups of

monstrous forms under which the imagination of each race has embodied

its ideas about (according to one hypothesis) the Powers of Darkness

it feared, or (according to another) the Aborigines it detested,

differ from each other to a considerable and easily recognizable

extent. An excellent illustration of this statement is offered by the

contrast between the Slavonic group of supernatural beings of this

class and their equivalents in lands tenanted by non-Slavonic members

of the Indo-European family. A family likeness will, of course, be

traced between all these conceptions of popular fancy, but the gloomy

figures with which the folk-tales of the Slavonians render us familiar

may be distinguished at a glance among their kindred monsters of

Latin, Hellenic, Teutonic, or Celtic extraction. Of those among the

number to which the Russian skazkas relate I will now proceed to give

a sketch, allowing the stories, so far as is possible, to speak for

themselves.

If the powers of darkness in the "mythical" skazkas are divided into

two groups--the one male, the other female--there stand out as the

most prominent figures in the former set, the Snake (or some other

illustration of "Zoological Mythology"), Koshchei the Deathless, and

the Morskoi Tsar or King of the Waters. In the latter group the

principal characters are the Baba Yaga, or Hag, her close connection

the Witch, and the Female Snake. On the forms and natures of the less

conspicuous characters to be found in either class we will not at

present dwell. An opportunity for commenting on some of them will be

afforded in another chapter.

To begin with the Snake. His outline, like that of the cloud with

which he is so frequently associated, and which he is often supposed

to typify, is seldom well-defined. Now in one form and now in another,

he glides a shifting shape, of which it is difficult to obtain a

satisfactory view. Sometimes he retains throughout the story an

exclusively reptilian character; sometimes he is of a mixed nature,

partly serpent and partly man. In one story we see him riding on

horseback, with hawk on wrist (or raven on shoulder) and hound at

heel; in another he figures as a composite being with a human body and

a serpent's head; in a third he flies as a fiery snake into his

mistress's bower, stamps with his foot on the ground, and becomes a

youthful gallant. But in most cases he is a serpent which in outward

appearance seems to differ from other ophidians only in being winged

and polycephalous--the number of his heads generally varying from

three to twelve.[73]

He is often known by the name of Zméï [snake] Goruinuich [son of the

gora or mountain], and sometimes he is supposed to dwell in the

mountain caverns. To his abode, whether in the bowels of the earth, or

in the open light of day--whether it be a sumptuous palace or "an

izba on fowl's legs," a hut upheld by slender supports on which it

turns as on a pivot--he carries off his prey. In one story he appears

to have stolen, or in some way concealed, the day-light; in another

the bright moon and the many stars come forth from within him after

his death. But as a general rule it is some queen or princess whom he

tears away from her home, as Pluto carried off Proserpina, and who

remains with him reluctantly, and hails as her rescuer the hero who

comes to give him battle. Sometimes, however, the snake is represented

as having a wife of his own species, and daughters who share their

parent's tastes and powers. Such is the case in the (South-Russian)

story of